Red Rag Doll
by Where the Sparrow Goes
Summary: AU. Might be cliché. Matt prefers to be alone hacking, or gaming. Being unwanted. The world has other plans as L, and his mysterious assistants N, M, and L2 require the worlds most elite and elusive hacker's help.
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer** - I own nothing.

**Title** - Red Rag Doll

**Future Pairings** - M&M, L&Light, with "subtle" hints of L&N, Light&Mikami, Light&Misa.

**Summary** - AU. Might be cliché. Matt prefers to be alone hacking, or gaming. Being unwanted. The world has other plans as L, and his mysterious assistants N, M, and L2 require the worlds most elite and elusive hacker's help.

**A/N** - Uhm. Yeah. Anyways, call me Sar. (: No this is not my first fanfiction written, just the first one I've put on fanfiction. So be nice? I dunno. Anyways Vin says I'm good at this, but I doubt it. No I need to have confidence so I suppose I'm decent. Anyways I know there is nothing related to someone having a gun except in the first three paragraphs, but I think of it as the gun being a threat, as you could go lots farther with a smile and a threat, such as a gun.

Uh, anyways this is just a prologue so it is going to be short and choppy. I can't write a prologue to save my life. I think. Well meh.

Well, enjoy. (:

-

You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.

Al Capone (1899 - 1947)

-

Matt had never been one to let his existence get out for long - even when he was younger. Having been abandoned by his prostitute mother at the age of six, and being adopted into a somewhat loving family of a mom, a dad, and an older step-brother in some form of military system he hadn't been fond of being recognized. He managed to convince his adopted parents to home school him so that there would be little interaction with outsiders. The redhead preferred to stay locked in his room, the curtains drawn over the only window with only the light from his laptop, the television, his beloved (and worshiped) game systems, or studies to keep him company. His adopted parents had no objection, after all they only thought it was a phase because he was an 'unwanted' child. The idiots didn't even know that Matt wasn't his name - it was just he couldn't let his real name go out. It felt like he'd lose the only thing that really any value left in it.

This was all fine and dandy until a killer happened upon the house - Matt having been 12 at the time - probably after hearing that the family was in the richer area and all happy. Matt in one of his rare occurrences of looking out the window at the sky - so blue - noticed the man sneaking into the house. This caused his phobia of strangers to kick in with an alarming adrenaline rush that he gathered his laptop equipment, hand held game systems and the games that belonged to those and hid beneath a group of loose floorboards underneath his bed. Closing his gray-green eyes he shuffled into a more comfortable position and clung to the backpack in which he stuffed everything.

The first thing he heard was the audible shriek from the woman who called herself his 'Mom', as she ran from the gun-wielding killer - who was fairly known around the time. The woman ran immediately to Matt's room, shouting franticly for Matt, who was witnessing the whole scene from a crack between the floorboards. The redhead honestly had no emotional attachments to the brunette women, who was now (from what he could tell) being gagged - choked more like - as the man raped her. The noise stopped except for a single gunshot downstairs as, Matt assumed, the man who called himself Matt's 'Dad' was killed. Then there was silence.

The redhead didn't know how long he stayed there, but long enough to hear police search the whole place except for his hiding place, and take the bodies to fix them up for the funeral. It seemed that the police hadn't even known about Matt. It wasn't till he couldn't see any light that the preteen boy pulled himself from his hiding spot. Wordlessly he trudged over to his closet and pulled out clothes that had been left there - three striped shirts, a pair of socks, two pairs of shorts, and combat boots he had never planned on wearing. He pulled the boots on, and threw the clothes into the backpack, along with his secret stash of nonperishable foods that he had snitched at late night intervals in case there was ever a need. Now seemed like a better time than anything, no? After securing his orange-tint goggles over his eyes, and grabbing one of those flashlights that charge by shaking them up, the boy was down the stairs and out the back door in a flash.

With the flashlight's dim glow the redhead made it to the edge of the woods behind his house that ended up in a park with the city on the other side. Standing at the edge of grass and leaf covering, he was in a tangle of thoughts. Should he leave the one place he knew he had always been able to stay alone in - away from what he disliked most, the outdoors and people? No. He couldn't, really couldn't live like that anymore. Matt had to go out and live away from the rules and peaceful lifestyle he had become used to. Closing his eyes to clear his head, he took off into the undergrowth of the wood, trying his best to ignore the crackle of leaves. After running for a while, he slowed down into a walk and knew that there was no way he could turn back now - after all he was lost. The preteen was lost in thought when the crunch of leaves was replaced by the thud of a cemented path, startling him into almost falling down.

Now in some sort of clear space he could tell the flashlight was no longer needed as the sun was flickering just above the treetops, so he shoved the unwanted device into his backpack and pulled out a bag of pretzels. "Damn... I hate these things, stupid stale, burnt bread..." he mumbled as he stuffed more of the salty snacks into his mouth, chewing audibly. He froze as he heard people walking towards his general location, almost expecting it to be police, but calming his paranoia with the fact that this was a public park. Which meant there would be people, just regular ordinary people that wouldn't know who he was, or even care. Right?

Casting a sly glance towards the ruckus he spotted a blond (presumably his age) male (who he almost mistook for a girl), an albino (a year younger, perhaps?), a panda looking teen (somewhere around nineteen), and an elderly gentleman taking a walk. The redhead almost thought to mutter something close to being 'freak', but decided against it since he himself was a freak. He was cast out of his thoughts as the blond one collided into Matt's left shoulder, successfully knocking his pretzel bag onto the ground. Grumbling, the redhead snatched up the fallen bag, but left the snack food that had hit the ground. It would be food for the birds. He looked up to see the blond glaring furiously at him, obviously thinking it was Matt's fault. Which it partially was...

"What the hell, you little redheaded freak!?" the blond screeched, aquamarine eyes a blaze of fury, reminding Matt of an angry angel. Hee. Matt made a bad joke.

"..." Matt didn't answer at first but the glare the blond was giving, and the looks from the other three told him he had to answer, "... It is highly unethically for someone to be walking backwards in a place that anyone could be walking... blondie..." He wasn't sure if they heard his mumble until the three on the sidelines stared at him in shock, and the blond grabbed the front of his shirt, and lifted the preteen from his crouch of dead pretzel observation.

"What did you just say, goggled freak? Would you like to repeat that, huh? Don't you know who I am, that you're not supposed to fuck with me? Well?" snarled the blond, preparing to hit Matt.

Matt sighed softly as his backpack hit the ground with a thud, looked to the side, the other side, the ground, the sky, and back at the blond before mumbling, "... A violent action will not make the situation change... It will only make me late for an important occurrence in my life and do little for your anger, _sir_..." This deadpan mumble caused the blond to lose his grip, and gave Matt the chance to grab his backpack and continue walking in the direction he had been heading, which thankfully was the opposite direction. He sighed happily when the ruckus from the group died out, and turned into a new form of ruckus - the city.

Fear kicked in as he realized he was in one of the bad parts of the city, the part where most of the mafia members lived. Oh, now he was screwed. Matt wasn't stupid, he had done his fair share of hacking, and could be a hacking prodigy when he wanted too. During the hacking he had learned the complete layout of the city, where what type of people lived where, and such. A slow, Cheshire Cat worthy grin appeared on the boy's face, perhaps he should just prove he was a good hacker and get a good deal out of one of these people. If he proved he was good, then things would go well for the redhead. The only question was, how to do this? First things first, find a spot that had free wireless Internet... And there was a Starbucks with the a sign proclaiming free wireless, Matt decided to become addicted to Starbucks coffee when he had enough money in thanks.

While flipping through his head for random places in the mafia hole this was, he heard someone complaining about someone called 'L' hacking their boss's files for information to stop dealings, and such. Matt just barely caught the name of the boss, and remembered vaguely hacking into that mafia boss's building before. So it would be done easily. This guy 'L' was clearly, blatantly allowing the mafia group to know he was hacking their building, so Matt could easily locate him. Now he had to give the message to the mafia.

The main computer at the mafia base had a single I.M.-styled pop-up on it that read;

_Hello mafia members. I have noticed that you have a hacker that is toying with you. I am Matt. I shall get rid of your hacker and then we shall discuss rewards, and the fact of how I shall work and help you. However you will never know who I am, since I can not be found, because I am supposed to be dead._

Matt watched their reactions from his laptop - seeing their faces and expressions from their own cameras was hilarious. He almost broke down in hysterics, almost. He was really only waiting a bit to get rid of this 'L', making it look like he was just going about a more effective way. Gloved fingers tapped across the keys for two minutes, and then 'L' was kicked out of all the systems in the mafia building.

"Huh? That L guys gone, what, how?" One of them, a brunette, gawked stupidly.

_Of course he is gone. What do you think I do not hold to promises? Matt tries his best never to lie. For these services please send 30,000 dollars to the back account number xxxxxxxxx. I could charge more, but for now I only require 30,000 for my current project and requirements. I will never work for free, and I am not apart of the mafia. I am a freelance hacker who will do as he pleases, and only take enough money for what is required at the time. Feel free to spread this message around. Now good bye, and I expect payment or I will delete everything._

Matt broke connection and closed his laptop, slipping the sleek black form into his backpack, and grinning walked out of the Starbucks to the apartment he had purchased as well. It wasn't a bad apartment, luxurious one either, just a regular decent apartment that he could always pay for. Who knew the mafia area would sell apartments to preteens?

Later, Matt supposed, when he was curled up in his new bed, the goggles pushed up into his hair, tears dribbled down his pale cheeks. "Damn... Mail Jeevas, what have you done to yourself...?" the redhead mumbled, burying his face into the pillow. Why was he regretting it now?

-

I know nothing about hacking so I just thought of stuff I've heard about hacking in movies and other fanfic. So don't hurt me about that. I realize there is no number for the bank account, I figured in case I picked a real one and all...

So anyways, good?

Bad?

All forms of review is welcome. Even if it is just hating. Shankyuu very much.


	2. Changes

**Disclaimer** - I own nothing.

**A/N**- Hiyas! :D Sar is here! I got a brand spanking new PSP with Crisis Core, and God of War so I'm going to be busy with that as well. :D I'd like to thank the people who reviewed. 3 people! Can you believe it!? Whoooot. And it was all positive review too. I must be good. Anyways, here is the official chapter one, enjoy. :3

-

Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788 - 1860)

-

_"Mail! Mail! What happened?"_

_"...nothing."_

_"Then why are you all beat up?"_

_"...fell down the stairs."_

_"Don't lie Mail, you know you're no good at it."_

_"...s'not my fault, if that's what you're wondering Mihael."_

_"I want to know who beat you up!"_

_"...not important."_

_"It is! Don't you want revenge?"_

_"..."_

_"Well!? Answer me!"_

_"..."_

_"I'm warning you, Mail..."_

_"...revenge wouldn't make it any better."_

_"You'd feel better."_

_"...then they would get revenge on my revenge."_

_"Well- Well- Whatever! Just tell me!"_

_"...don't wanna."_

_"Was it those shinigami again!?"_

_"...no."_

_"So who then?"_

_"..."_

_"Mail..."_

_"...it was..."_

Matt woke up to the semi-annoying music of a game over from the television, and fell off the couch in mild shock. The shock mostly connected to the fact that he had fallen asleep during a video game, not the strange dream he'd had. He'd been getting those for a while, ever since he was thirteen, this one had been a bit different. The first reason being that names had been used, one of them being his, and the fact that he didn't recognize the other name used. The second reason had been the mention of something supernatural; Shinigami. The redhead had never had a thought about shinigami once in his seventeen years of life. So how had that gotten in his dream? And how could something that didn't exist beat him up? The most shocking part of the dream had been the fact that he had seen some form of image - just blurred colors, but that was saying something compared to the other ones. All the previous dreams had been simply voices, no color, no nothing, just voices. So what had possessed those dreams to suddenly give him names and color? Thinking hard on the dream was going to give him a headache, so he fumbled to pull his goggles over his face to find that they weren't around his neck or on top of his head.

The redhead cursed silently, and open his eyes, only to shut them as light caused a searing pain to shock his nerve-endings. He cursed once more, and wonder why he had let the window open for fresh air later at night. While he stumbled over to the window, he damned his sensitive eyes that hated light from the sun. After drawing the dark black curtains over the offending window, the redhead turned around and slumped agianst the wall. Opening gray green eyes he stared fuzzily at the dark apartment, and rubbed at his eyes for a few seconds to clear his vision a more. Scanning the dark room for his goggles, he spotted them and made a beeline for their location on the kitchen counter. Pulling the goggles on, the redhead gave a sigh of relief. He thought he'd lost something important. The goggles were important because they helped to see like a regular human being, to not flinch away from any form of natural light.

He looked around nervously once more, half expecting someone to be there, and cursed himself for having turned to the news at that second two weeks ago. Two weeks ago he had heard, on the accursed news channel, about how L - the 'great detective' - and his apprentices - N, M, and L2 were coming to America to work on the 'Kira' case. He had been about to change the channel when he heard that L had also hoped to find the hacker, Matt, as well. This had caused Matt's terrible case of paranoia to ensue, but he had calmed down after two weeks of nothing. The redhead returned to his game of Okami - and sighed as he loaded a save. This was his seventh time playing the game after beating it the first time - he was still trying to get all of those stray beads. He needed to find out what you got from getting them all. Really needed to.

A knock on his door caused the redhead to falter and take an attack from the giant snake bitch he was fighting, people rarely knocked on his door. Strange. Very strange. Then again they could've gotten gotten the wrong room, so he went back to killing spider hag. The knocking continued, and the redhead began to to get annoyed with the constant _tap, tap._A muffled threat of knocking the door down caused the redhead to pause the game in mid swing at the last of the spider hag's eyes. Matt mumbled under his breath and made for the door, pulling open and raising an eyebrow at the people outside his door. A panda-looking individual was stopped in mid-knock at the opening of the door, and an albino was holding a transformer in his arms staring at the now open door expectantly. A blond male clad in leather with a burn scar on the left side of his face looked angry, a brunette male looked at the dark-haired panda with relief, and an old man was behind the group in a very butler-like attire. Well, the only thing Matt could think was, what the hell?

"I'm am L," the panda said in a monotone voice, and gave Matt a questioning look.

Matt shook his head in slight disbelief before saying, "...Well come in then, or do you want to draw attention?" The group now entered the room, and took seats on the couch, and the two recliners. This meant Matt had to sit on the floor, not that he minded. The redhead added, "..Wait before you start talking, I need to kill this spider bitch." He then unpaused the game, and cheered when the spider hag died. He then skipped the cut scene, found one of those mirrors you had to save in, and turned the game off. He turned around on the floor to view the people sitting in his apartment.

"This place could use some light," the elderly gentleman said heading towards the window, obviously to drawback the light-blocking windows. The redhead's eyes opened in shock and fear, even seeing light through his goggles hurt, so he kept the curtains drawn for a reason.

"Don't!" he managed to force out in something other than a mumble, causing the gentleman to stop heading towards the window. "...Don't touch the curtains, the light _hurts_."

The elder man was about to say something in protest when the panda, L Matt corrected himself, spoke up, "Leave it be, Watari." So the curtains were left alone, and Matt's eyes were safe from another dose of pain. Hurray.

"I still can't believe this scrawny shit is the hacker - Matt - we've been looking for," the blond spat glaring at the redhead with distaste. What a nice first impression to someone you just met met, blondie.

When the redhead made no move to retort, L spoke, "Introduce yourselves."

"Near," the albino was the first to talk.

"Raito," next was the brunette.

"Mello," then the bad first impressionist blond.

"Watari," and finally the elder man. L was looking expectantly at the redhead as if he wanted... Well that figures.

"...Matt," the redhead said, and glanced at the group, who had obviously expected him to have some other name, "..sorry the name's drab and common."

Raito was the first to react to the unconscious stares, "Oh! Sorry about that, we just assumed Matt was your pseudonym."

It is. "...Well it's not my pseudonym as you can see."

L decided to change the subject, "I want you to work under me, to help gather information the police can't get on suspects."

"...Why?"

"WHAT!?" the blond growled, obviously he hadn't been told. And from the looks of things neither had the other three been told. Well what a terrible surprise.

"You heard what I said, Mello, and as to why? Well, you are one of - no the best hacker the world's ever been faced with, and it would be safer to have you working for me," L answered.

The redhead sighed, the best? That was not true. Matt hardly had the motivation to be the best hacker, hell he hardly hacked anymore, preferring to play video games instead of hacking. It didn't suit his fancy much anymore. The only reason he hacked anymore was when he was bored beyond belief, he needed money, or to try and find some hint to those annoying dreams he's been having. That was probably the only reason it took these fucking geniuses two weeks to find him. Well its not like he had much to object against, since it meant he wouldn't have to go to jail and be... well whatever happens to decent looking guys who get sent there. He made a move to stand and walk to the hallway to search for bags and such that he could stuff everything in when he was interrupted.

"Where are you going?" this time the albino spoke, and Matt assumed the kid normally didn't like to talk. He could just tell by how the albino's voice was small, and wary.

"...What's it look like? I'm going to look for stuff to pack all of my shit in," the redhead answered, shuffling through one of the closets in the hallway.

The elder gentleman and Raito came to help, and Matt ended up with a suitcase, a briefcase he never knew he had, and two backpacks. More than enough for what he planned to drag with him. The redhead grabbed the briefcase and headed towards the kitchen counter, where all of his laptop equipment was, and carefully placed the three laptops, all the wires, and the cd cases into the briefcase. The larger games systems and games went into the suitcase - his new Wii was wrapped up carefully, couldn't have it breaking now could he? The handheld game systems and games went into one backpack - except his PSP, he planned to play that on the ride to where ever he was going. All of his striped shirts, and his some striped and some not jeans went into the other backpack. All packed 'cept... where did his vest go?

"...Damn vest, disappearing all the time," he grumbled and went back to searching through the closets that had a bunch of unnecessary items within them. Finally he found his tan vest with white fur (the one we all know and love) and slid it on. He fished through his pockets and pulled out a dum dum, he had decided to not die of lung cancer but instead die of something (hopefully) less painful. The mismatched group had left to the car with his bags, and said to hurry when he found his vest. The blond had given him a funny look, something like 'make-us-wait-for-a-vest-and-you-will-regret-it'. He obviously didn't like the idea of Matt being there, but the redhead didn't want to go to jail so the blond would have to deal with it.

Turns out the 'car' was a 'limo', oh how subtle. The redhead cursed his luck, and then remembered this was the mafia district - of course a limo being somewhere wasn't uncommon. Matt climbed into the car, and muttered as he had to sit between the albino and the blond. Just his luck, since the two were glaring at each other as if they'd rip each other to pieces at any given chance. Matt did the only thing he could do in this situation - he pulled out his PSP and started to play Crisis Core for the first time. It had been a pain to get the game as lots of people wanted to get the Final Fantasy game, and it had to be annoyingly ordered online. Really annoying.

Most of the ride went unnoticed by the redhead except for the fact that the blond was watching him play - it was unnerving. Very unnerving. The redhead was about to make an irrated comment at the blond's staring, when he heard the limo's engine turn off. Apparently they were there. He peeked outside the window, and 'there' was an old-looking mansion surrounded by woods. Matt thought it looked rather horror-esque, but figured it suited the panda's style after all it was where no one would usually go. He was jolted out of his mansion-criticism by the blond who shoved him out of the door, grumbling about lazy asses. After entering the mansion the redhead was very glad to see that the inside was old fashioned but new - meaning nothing would fall apart on him.

He was being led down a hallway, when the redhead stopped walking. Something felt off - like he wasn't supposed to be here. As if... only L, Near, Mello, Raito, and Watari were supposed to be in this building. The overbearing feel of that he wasn't supposed to be there, made the redhead felt like he couldn't breath. His green eyes scanned the hallway, taking in the portraits that were only of the five who were walking in front of him. Matt really didn't belong here - he should have let them keep knocking, let them. He should have ignored it, let them think he wasn't there, should have, but he let the feel of annoyance make him answer the door.

"...why...?" he hadn't thought when he mumbled, as his body was forcing him lean agianst the wall to preven him from collapsing on the spot. The redhead had the urge to throw up as a feeling of sickness curled its way from his stomach to his limbs, he didn't belong here.

He didn't noticed the five had come over to where the pain had attacked until Mello growled, "Why what?"

"...hurts. Not supposed to be here, to get in the way... you five. Shouldn't be here," the redhead managed to choke out, feeling rather stupid as the five gave him funny looks.

"I believe we should tell you," L started to speak, "Do you believe in premonition?" The redhead shrugged, it hurt to speak now. "The five of us have had dreams, visions, of our past life, we knew each other then, so that is the reason we all have met. The five of us, at least. We didn't know anyone else in our past lives, so only us five are together. This is a first - bringing someone else into the equation."

This was getting weird - but then he could relate. Those all-to-real dreams of voices he had, perhaps that was his past life? No he couldn't be sure - after all he hadn't seen anything but black in those dreams except for the one before these five showed up. Wait - why would the dreams suddenly change the day these people show up? It couldn't have been a coincidence, no that was improbable. They knew about his dreams, he could ask. He would, but not now. Right now he needed to sort through this.

He looked up and saw that the others were talking, but he couldn't hear. The pain was too much as it had now worked its way to his head, and forced him to shut his eyes against the pain. If Matt could he would've sighed in relief as the pain made him slip into unconsciousness.

_"...it was..." the last of the words left the young redhead's mouth in too small of a mumble._

_"Mail!" growled the blond, looking at his year-younger friend._

_"...sorry, it was Raito," squeaked the redhead, sinking further into the tall grass._

_"What!? Don't lie!" snarled the blond, obviously disapproving of Mail's answer._

_"I'm not lieing Mihael!" he cried, desperate for Mihael to believe him._

_Mihael didn't answer at first, and then pulled the redhead into a hug, "Sorry I didn't believe you, Mail."_

_The younger snuggled into the blond's hug, and mumbled, "...s'okay, Mihael."_

_Mihael sighed as he ran a hand through shaggy red hair - that was oddly the same dark color as fresh blood, "S'not okay Mail, I should believe you, you're my friend - not Raito. It's just... He's the... And... But you're better then him Mail, so much better." His grip on the redhead tightened, it was clear the blond didn't want to lose his friend, but also didn't want to lose Raito's trust. Mail's cheeks were dusted red as the blond started to kiss and bite his neck and collarbone, the redhead hadn't expected it as Mihael usually didn't do things like this unless the blond was the cause of Mail's suffering._

_"Nn... ah... Mihael... why...?" the flustered redhead managed to ask as the blond's gentle caresses trailed up to his jaw. He felt the blond's chuckle more than heard it, as he bit down on the redhead's neck, before licking the wound and pulling away to look his object of pleasure in the face._

_The blond smiled a bit before answering, "'Cause I don't want to lose _my_ Mail." He then pulled the redhead into a kiss, and slid his tongue into the willing redhead's mouth for a deeper, more meaningful make out session._

_"Hyuk, hyuk. Wait till those four find out what little Mihael's up to, hyuk hyuk!" A darkened figure flew off towards the location of L, Raito, Near, and Watari._

-

Ta-da! And there it is. The first chapter. I felt bad about making Matt be in pain in the last part so I made the dream thing he go at the end have a bit of fluff. And look a cliffy! :D

**edit; **A friend of mine - Jik (as Vin, Eon, and I call her.) is using my account as well. I thought I'd point that out in case people think I'm working on two stories at the same time. Uhm, no. I don't have that good of an attention span. C:

R & R please and shankyuu.


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